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Review: Dracula at the Everyman is a horror show of delight

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Dracula at the Everyman

Maybe the front of house sign stating that ‘audience reactions will be filmed’ should have given me a clue.

But nothing could have prepared the audience of Dracula at the Everyman on Tuesday for the drama which unfolded.

The production promised to be a multi-sensory experience but I wasn’t expecting a spine-tingling, bone-rattling, heart attack-inducing frightmare which took place on and off the stage.

The special effects in this production are nothing short of award worthy. Strobe lighting can be overused but the lighting team in this show balanced the harrowing effect with soft ‘candlelight’ during the scenes, using the harsh white flickers to illuminate moments of modern dance - writing bodies distorted in the horror before us.

Crushing sound effects - arguably louder than any cinema within a mile radius - literally shook the seats and reverberated through our bones. And the first act finale closed with a special effect (no spoilers) which swept the audience off their feet.

But it’s never a good idea to be distracted by the special effects and in this case it wouldn’t be fair to detract from the multitude of talent on stage.

Delicate yet fiesta beauty Lucy (Jessica Webber) enthralled with her youthful energy. She effortlessly flitted between coquettish young thing and possessed demon, interspersed with what the BBC would call ‘scenes of a sexual nature’.

It’s been a while since I read Dracula, but this stage version was certainly raunchier than I remembered.

The sexual imagery of the original text came to life on the stage, with the young actors writhing their way through orgasmic scenes of neck-biting, young Lucy clutching at her neck, speaking of an ‘earthquake’ inside her and asking innocent Mina (Olivia Swann) if her fiancée ever made her ‘tremble’.

When Count Dracula (Glen Fox) made one of his attention-grabbing appearances, coming through Lucy’s window to possess her, the image of him wrapping her bedspread around him as a cape and settling comfortably ‘underneath the covers’ while she squirmed in pleasure was enough to make some audience members gasp – and enough to make them all whoop and applaud at the interval.

White-nightie clad Lucy was perfectly offset by the serious and staid Mina, who didn’t let her hair down until the final act and came alive in a sensuous sexual awakening. In what seemed like a Zeitgeist nod to 2018’s Me Too movement, the image of a young, black woman defeating a powerful man with the words ‘I will not submit to you’ could not have been more relevant for a text written in 1897.

The leading ladies were supported by handsome partners, the juddering Dr Seward (Evan Milton) and tormented traveller Jonathan Harker (Andrew Horton) who faced the demons of Count Dracula’s castle, including a fantastic visual feast of movement when he was seduced by the count’s vixens.

Vampire hunter Professor Van Helsing (Philip Bretherton) added an authority to the piece while lunatic Lady Renfield (Cheryl Campbell) stole the show with her glittering cape and mouse-eating antics, but her appeal to Count Dracula to ‘keep his promise’ and make her his bride, was heart-wrenching – literally.

A fine ensemble cast whose grasp of Romanian is far better than mine complemented the drama perfectly, with worried fishermen, newspaper sellers and tormented vixens in the castle completing the horror show.

A technical problem left the sweltering audience sitting with the house lights up for half an hour after the first act, but as the audience member sitting behind me noted, they didn’t need to worry. We would have waited all night for the conclusion of this gripping drama.

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Mind - quite literally - blown.

Dracula is at the Everyman until Saturday, October 6. Box office: 01242 572573